


いかないで

by AndyAO3



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Backstory, Blood and Injury, Feels, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 17:24:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7370875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndyAO3/pseuds/AndyAO3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hanzo has no one to blame but himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	いかないで

**Author's Note:**

> My best friend made squalling noises at me for the better part of a half hour about this one when I showed it to her. She was not happy. That was exactly the reaction that was intended. _I may be a bit evil._
> 
> Other people have written similar things before, but this one's mine, and it might end up having a sequel if I find the time between maining Soldier 76 and yelling at people who don't stay close to their healers. FYI, the temptation to reference a particular song was so great that I broke my usual theme-naming conventions I've set for myself, so if it seems like the name is out of place, that's why. 
> 
> I drew an art to go with it, too! http://logicalfangirl.tumblr.com/image/146735900355

Genji was dying.

It was something Hanzo knew, deep down. Chilling his bones. Constricting his chest until he couldn't breathe, until he thought his heart might stop beating altogether.

Genji was dying, blood pooling on the mat, filling his lungs, welling up in his throat. Hanzo had cut him, again and again. Willing him to fight back. But he hadn't. He'd taken every blow like he had accepted it. Or perhaps it was his rebelliousness, refusing to do what anyone willed for him, even at the cost of his own life. Or maybe he was just good, and kind, and unwilling to do more than parry the blows his brother dealt.

Hanzo's sword clattered to the floor. His legs moved without his will behind them; he fell to his knees at his brother's side, gently pulling Genji's head into his lap. His younger brother sputtered, coughed. Blood stained Hanzo's clothes, soaking through the fabric quickly. Hanzo didn't care.

Why hadn't Genji retaliated, blocked, stopped him? Why had the dragons done as Hanzo had asked of them? Why had Genji not called on his own to placate them, or soothe them, or even turn them on their own master? Why?

"Why?" Hanzo whispered aloud. Genji could not answer, even if he had heard. Even if he had the capacity to understand and respond. But an answer was unnecessary, because Hanzo knew what it would be. He knew, just as surely as he knew his brother was dead, and he was to blame for it: Genji was the better man, and it was in the nature of cruel men to not let good ones last for long. Cruel men such as Hanzo, and all the other men of the Shimada clan before him who had survived long enough to rule it.

One of Genji's hands twitched slightly, weakness overriding his will to move. Hanzo was quick to reach over, grasp it in his own, squeeze it firmly. For just a moment, Genji's eyes opened. Soft and dark and wet with tears. He was scared, Hanzo realized. Of what, it was impossible to say. Maybe death, or maybe Hanzo himself.

Death was drawing closer, Hanzo knew. Genji choked on a wheezing, rattling breath. His body shuddered with the effort of holding itself together; where it was not stained with blood or ruined beyond measure, his skin had turned the color of a paper screen. Hanzo wanted to reassure him, but no words were forthcoming. None that were not selfish, none that did not show how rotten Hanzo was inside even then.

Because he wanted to say, _don't go_.

Because he wanted Genji to know, _I'm sorry._

Because he would be all alone if Genji were gone, and he wasn't strong enough to handle that. Not like his younger brother was-- effortlessly capable of handling anything, effortlessly able to meet new people that weren't servants or part of the family and then get along with them in a way that Hanzo never could.

Selfish. Monstrous. A rotten, dirty brother-killer.

If Hanzo were kind at all, if he had even a scrap of mercy in him, he would deal a final blow. Kill Genji outright, instead of prolonging things. But he had no mercy. He could not bring himself to draw his shorter blade and end it any more than he could do the same to himself.

So close. It wouldn't be long. For seconds at a time, Genji would stop breathing altogether before he was able to do so again. Hanzo bit back a sob.

He couldn't stand it.

Gently, he lowered his brother back down onto the mat and stood. Bloody from the waist down, he left the hall. A servant girl gasped when she saw him in passing; he paid her no mind. He heard her scream when she came to the scene, even well on his way down the garden path and outside the building as he was.

Days later, he was told that Genji's heart had stopped on arrival at the hospital.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> いかないで/ikanaide = "don't go"


End file.
